July 24, 2012

Learnins is learnins

If you want to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything. – Win Borden

Today has been my day to procrastinate.

Boy, have I procrastinated.

First, I signed up for a course on Coursera. No real credit, no real anything except a shiny piece of paper that says ‘yeah, you finished’. That’s okay by me!

So much in the world hinges around what we have to do. Have to do, Have to do. I have to do this, I have to make a living, I have to do the laundry, I have to…and it’s a mindset that I believe is adding to the grindstone we hang around our necks in an effort to be responsible.

I fight against Have To and Should Do and I Really Can’t. Those are words of negativity. Those are not words of happiness. I’m all about bringing happiness into the world. I can’t make others happy, I can be happy for them but their happiness is their responsibility, as my happiness is mine.

And taking this online class, Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, is going to do that for me. I’m really quite jazzed about it. I have no idea what to expect. Some reading, essay writing. Keeping up is the hardest part because, yo, procrastinator here. I’ve connected with some folks in the class already and it’s really kicked my butt into gear in branching out my networking a little more. It’ll also get me in the groove of blogging more often.

Ultimately, it’s pushing me back into the education frame of mind. For too long I’ve coasted and hardly challenged myself in this fashion. Thoughts of going back to school and getting my history degree for no other reason than because I want to. Feeling the fire again. The fire to read, the fire to write, the fire to learn.

So really, I’m getting a lot more out of this than just fun education. This pleases me in many ways.

Watch these spaces for my thoughts on the class as assignments are handed out. I have my reading list and I have enough to prepare.

In other news, I’m close to getting my short stories ready for self-publishing on Amazon to start the Great Self-Publishing Experiment. No, I won’t share the titles or the name I’m writing them under. Not that I’m ashamed but I want to keep that writing pseudonym separate from this one. Privacy and all that. I will be reporting the results, scrubbed clean of the specific identifiers. Having a blast with that, by the way. Total blast.

So glad to have found a fellow Coursera blogger – excellent! I have subscribed. My blog is here:http://courserafantasy.blogspot.com/
I’m a self-publishing person, too – I wrote a book this summer: 1001 two-line poems in Latin. http://distichalatina.blogspot.com/ Yep, that’s obscure. Which is why I love the Internet! Out there in the world are a few hundred people who are into the same obscure Latin stuff that I am, and we can connect and share online. Thank goodness! Otherwise, it would just be my poor husband having to listen to me blather on about the book (and he doesn’t even know Latin), and the cat (who likes me to speak Latin, of course – he doesn’t care, just as long as he thinks I am talking to him).
Happy Learning! 🙂